The Koreans are on a roll. No longer should it surprise us when we find one of their vehicles impressive. It's the norm anymore, regardless of the metric, from performance to quality to value.

That is, we shouldn't be surprised, and yet we're still occasionally amazed by the level of sophistication these cars can deliver for the money, especially at the low end. So we sprang for a long-term test of the recently launched Kia Rio to see exactly how well one of our favorite new Korean cars would fare over the long haul.

For starters, the Rio is available in two body styles, as a sedan or a five-door hatchback, and seeing as we tend toward the hauling-more-is-always-better end of things around here, we opted for the latter and its 15.0 cubic feet of cargo space. (Folding the rear seats opens that up to a whopping 47.1 cubic feet.) Besides, the price differential between the two is negligible, at just $200. But with the hatch you get oh, so much more capability, which—given all of the softball games and camping trips and Costco runs that fill our weekends—we exploit at every opportunity.

Every Rio model draws power from the same all-aluminum 1.6-liter direct-injection four-cylinder gasoline engine with continuously variable valve timing, turning out 138 hp and 123 lb-ft of torque. It's a high-tech piece designed as much for fuel efficiency as power, returning an EPA-estimated 30 mpg in the city and 40 mpg on the highway (33 mpg combined). Given our lead feet and penchant for bombing around town at nine-tenths, we're keen to find out exactly how well the Rio performs at the pump over the course of the year.

We then climbed the trim-level ladder all the way to the top, choosing the chockablock SX model on which to build our car. The SX trim gets a standard tilt-and-telescoping steering wheel, 17-inch wheels and tires, a sport-tuned suspension, fog lamps, LED taillights, dual exhaust tips, Bluetooth connectivity and steering-wheel audio controls. It also boasts features that we welcome but that seem almost out of place on such a small car, including power-folding outside mirrors and a rearview camera.

To that healthy list of standard content we checked just about every options box possible, adding a power sunroof, navigation, push-button keyless ignition and heated and leather-trimmed seats. The grand total for our loaded Rio comes to almost $21,000.

That sum doesn't exactly get you a race car, but the 1.6-liter does a decent job of propelling the Rio to 60 mph from a standstill in 9.3 seconds. Stopping from that speed eats up 132.1 feet. Perhaps more enjoyable is the car's midrange power; it takes only 3.6 seconds to accelerate from 30 mph to 50 mph. And while it's not the nimblest of cars, it does manage a respectable 42.1 mph through our tight little slalom course and can hold 0.79 g around our 200-foot skidpad. That should make for some moderate around-town fun.

Unfortunately, because only base LX models get the six-speed manual standard—and our gluttony for features and options pushed us to the top-line SX—we will have to make do with the six-speed automatic transmission. We'll see how much of that 138 hp is left after making its way through the torque converter. Hopefully we'll still be able to enjoy the actual act of driving while saddled with the slushbox.

Here's to a surprisingly good year with our newest long-termer.

Natalie Neff
- Road test editor Natalie Neff has been with Autoweek for 11 years and oversees all new-car reviews and testing. She has tested cars across glaciers in Iceland and through the jungles of Belize.
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